The Illustrated London Reading Book eBook

The Dancing Dervises are a religious order of Mohamedans,
who affect a great deal of patience, humility, and
charity. Part of their religious observance consists
in dancing or whirling their bodies round with the
greatest rapidity imaginable, to the sound of a flute;
and long practice has enabled them to do this without
suffering the least inconvenience from the strange
movement.

In Eastern countries, the bread is generally made
in the form of a large thin cake, which is torn and
folded up, almost like a sheet of paper; it can then
be used (as knives and forks are not employed by the
Orientals) for the purpose of rolling together a mouthful
of meat, or supping up gravy and vegetables, at the
meals.

[Illustration: DANCING DERVISE.]

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ON STUDY.

Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability.
The chief use for delight is in privateness and retiring;
for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is
in the judgment and disposition of business.
For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars
one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots,
and marshalling of affairs, come best from those that
are learned. To spend too much time in studies,
is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation;
to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humour
of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected
by experience; for natural abilities are like natural
plants, that need pruning by duty; and studies themselves
do give forth directions too much at large, except
they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men
contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise
men use them: for they teach not their own use,
but that is a wisdom without them, and above them,
won by observation. Read not to contradict and
confute, nor to believe and take for granted; not to
find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed,
and some few to be chewed and digested: that
is, some books are to be read only in parts; others
to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be
read wholly, and with diligence and attention.
Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts
made of them by others; but that should be only in
the less important arguments, and the meaner sorts
of books; else distilled books are like common distilled
waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man;
conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.
And, therefore, if a man write little, he had need
have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need
have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need
have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not.